Part 6 (1/2)

It was not many days before Sir Joseph asked Marie Louise to carry another envelope to Nicky. She went out alone, shuddering in the wet and edged air. She found the bench agreed on, and sat waiting, craven and mutinous. Nicky did not come, but another man pa.s.sed her, looked searchingly, turned and came back to murmur under his lifted hat:

”Miss Webling?”

She gave him her stingiest ”Yis.”

”Mr. Easton asked me to meet you in his place, and explain.”

”He is not coming?”

”He can't. He is ill. A bad cold only. He has a letter for you. Have you one for him?”

Marie Louise liked this man even less than she would have liked Nicky himself. She was alarmed, and showed it. The stranger said:

”I am Mr. von Groner, a frient of--of Nicky's.”

Marie Louise vibrated between shame and terror. But von Groner's credentials were good; it was surely Nicky's hand that had penned the lines on the envelope. She took it reluctantly and gave him the letter she carried.

She hastened home. Sir Joseph was in a sad flurry, but he accepted the testimony of Nicky's autograph.

The next day Marie Louise must go on another errand. This time her envelope bore the name of Nicky and the added line, ”_Kindness of Mr.

von Groner._”

Von Groner tried to question Marie Louise, but her wits were in an absolute maelstrom of terror. She was afraid of him, afraid that he represented Nicky, afraid that he did not, afraid that he was a real German, afraid that he was a pretended spy, or an English secret-service man. She was afraid of Sir Joseph and his wife, afraid to obey them or disobey them, to love them or hate them, betray them or be betrayed. She had lost all sense of direction, of impetus, of desire.

She saw that Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were in a state of panic, too. They smiled at her with a wan pity and fear. She caught them whispering often. She saw them cling together with a devotion that would have been a burlesque in a picture seen by strangers. It would have been almost as grotesque as a view of a hippopotamus and his mate cowering hugely together and nuzzling each other under the menace of a lightning-storm.

Marie Louise came upon them once comparing the envelope she had just brought with other letters of Nicky's. Sir Joseph slipped them into a book, then took one of them out cautiously and showed it to Marie Louise.

”Does that look really like the writing from Nicky?”

”Yes,” she said, then, ”No,” then, ”Of course,” then, ”I don't know.”

Lady Webling said, ”Sit down once, my child, and tell me just how this man von Groner does, acts, speaks.”

She told them. They quizzed her. She was afraid that they would take her into their confidence, but they exchanged querying looks and signaled caution.

Sir Joseph said: ”Strange how long Nicky stays sick, and his memory--little things he mixes up. I wonder is he dead yet. Who knows?”

”Dead?” Marie Louise cried. ”Dead, and sends you letters?”

”Yes, but such a funny letter this last one is. I think I write him once more and ask him is he dead or crazy, maybe. Anyway, I think I don't feel so very good now--mamma and I take maybe a little journey.

You come along with, yes?”

A rush of desperate grat.i.tude to the only real people in her world led her to say:

”Whatever you want me to do is what I want to do--or wherever to go.”

Lady Webling drew her to her breast, and Sir Joseph held her hand in one of his and patted it with the flabby other, mumbling: